Winter seasonal tasting tonight

by Chuck Slothower
I just heard that El Rancho Tavern in Durango will be hosting a winter beer tasting at 5 p.m. tonight (Dec. 12). It costs $10 for a cup, or two cans of food for donation. Rumor has it that Ska's Euphoria Pale Ale will be the lowest-alcohol beer featured, so expect some boozy winter warmers.

Review: Spruce Goose 2009 (Steamworks Brewing Co.)

by Chuck Slothower

A few years ago, I ordered a Spruce Goose Ale at Steamworks Brewing in Durango, attracted mostly by the name. Howard Hughes' flying crate had always seemed a bit romantic to me.

Unfortunately, the beer was some sort of fizzy yellow concoction. The taste shrieked of spruce. It was completely unapproachable and out of balance, and it took me years to brave another glass.

My, how things change.

Steamworks brewer Ken Martin has thoroughly revamped Spruce Goose, making it into a whole new beer. The brewery seems to recognize this, packaging it in an attractive wine-type bottle, topped by a cork and a cage. At $9.99 a bottle, it's clearly an upmarket gambit.

I brought a bottle home hoping not to hate it.

Spruce Goose pours a deep copper color, with a white head that melts away quickly. It's quite similar in appearance to a Belgian amber or abbey ale.

The taste is extraordinarily impressive. At first, it's a tad sweet, as with many Belgian beers. Then comes the spruce. Unlike in previous iterations of Spruce Goose, the flavor from spruce tips in the 2009 version is nicely restrained. Spruce has a flavor all its own, but raspberries may be the closest analogue. It's fruity in the best way, as with other beers made from truly natural fruit flavorings. It avoids the trap of excessive sweetness that other fruit-spiced beers sometimes fall into. The finish is pleasantly dry.

Martin harvested 80 pounds of spruce tips from near Little Molas Lake north of Durango, for which the brewery had to obtain a permit from the San Juan National Forest. Much like the locally produced Insider Ale that uses fresh apples or Ska's Hoperation Ivy fresh-hop IPA, Spruce Goose continues and reinforces the trend of using local ingredients in brewing.

2009 Spruce Goose is a whole different beer than previous versions, and I'm a little surprised Steamworks kept the name ? there's no shame in retiring a beer that didn't work. For some reason, Durango's breweries seem to never have the heart to kill a beer.

Whatever its name, Spruce Goose is a smashing success, one of the best beers I've had this year. The flavor is wonderfully subtle and complex. And it's encouraging, given Steamworks' ongoing pullback from Bayfield. Get this winter seasonal while it's available.

Martin, who also revamped Ale Diablo, seems to be on a bit of a roll. Let's hope he keeps it going. A+

Ska Brewing Co. to release ... my beer

by Chuck Slothower

Ska Brewing Co. President Dave Thibodeau has invited Beer at 6512's own Soggy Coaster and Beer N Bikes' blogger Jeff Hammett to each brew a beer in collaboration with Ska.

We will work with Ska Head Brewer Thomas Larsen to choose a beer style and devise a recipe. When the beers are done, they will be put on tap at Ska Brewing's headquarters in Durango.

Meanwhile, we will blog, write, photograph, drink and be merry. You get to follow the project from start to finish and drink the resulting beers.

First, this is an extraordinarily innovative project. To my knowledge, Jeff and I will be the first beer bloggers in the nation to brew a beer with a commercial craft brewer. It's a logical extension of the collaborations many breweries, including Ska, have done with homebrewers.

This raises some obvious questions. Let's start with the fun one: What to brew?

I want to choose a style that is not brewed by any of Durango's breweries. That instantly cuts the options down dramatically. Among the four of them, Durango's breweries cover an impressive variety of styles.

I considered a Belgian abbey-style ale, but Ska is soon coming out with a Belgian-style pale ale of its own. So I'm leaning toward an imperial red ale. No brewery in Durango brews an imperial red now, and I don't recall any of them doing so in the past.

Essentially, it would be a double-Pinstripe. My inspiration for this is Ninkasi Believer, an Oregon beer that comes in at 6.9 percent ABV and 60 IBUs. Using as a base Pinstripe, Ska's best-selling beer, might give us a head start.

I don't know what style of beer Jeff has in mind.

I look forward to learning more about brewing. I think I've learned quite a bit about beer, but for a beer blogger, my knowledge of the actual brewing process is pathetically limited.

I can't speak for Jeff, but for me, "working with" Larsen will mostly involve watching him brew and learning. Unless I'm distracted by whatever hairstyle he's into lately. Last I saw, he was sporting a pink mohawk.

To be clear, Ska is paying for the beer ingredients, use of their equipment and Larsen's time. I'm not making a dime from this. And although I'm grateful for this opportunity, I don't plan to begin pulling any punches on Ska or ignoring the brewery's competitors, nor would Thibodeau expect me to.

A five-gallon keg of my beer and Jeff's beer will be on tap at Ska at some undetermined date. Many of the details remain to be nailed down, including the timing, and my idea for the style could change.

But, most importantly, this should be fun. I'll let you know when I know more.

The grocery-store sales debate, redux

by Chuck Slothower
A Colorado political candidate is attempting to place an initiative on the ballot to allow grocery stores to sell full-strength beer, reports my Durango Herald colleague Joe Hanel.

As most of you know, grocery stores in the state may sell only beer containing up to 3.2 percent ABV. Real beer is sold in liquor stores.

This is just the latest chapter in a long debate over whether grocery stores should be allowed to sell full-strength beer. The Legislature has taken up this issue and gotten nowhere, in part because convenience stores - a surprisingly powerful lobby - do not want to lose more business to grocery stores.

Leaving aside the politics, let's take a look at the merits and drawbacks of grocery store sales. I start from the standpoint that people and institutions should generally be allowed to do what they want unless there is a good reason to prohibit them from doing so.

That leaves us with the objections to grocery store sales. As I see it, there are two primary objections to allowing grocery stores to sell full-strength beers:

1. It would hurt other businesses, primarily small liquor stores located next to grocery stores and also convenience stores.

2. It would reduce consumer access to craft beer, as most large grocery chains would carry only beer from big producers such as Sam Adams and New Belgium.

The best articulation I've heard of objection #1 was put forth by Ska President Dave Thibodeau in a May interview with Beer at 6512:

"Most of the little independently and locally owned liquor stores that are sitting right next to these large, chain grocery stores, a lot of those guys would go out of business. ... This is what's unfair about it: they strategically located their stores in the parking lots of grocery stores. It was their business plan. To go and change the rules now that negates the entire reason they thought they had a good idea, it isn't fair."

The interests of business owners clearly carry some weight. But changes in laws that affect businesses are nothing new. Cigarette manufacturers are required to label their products with strong warnings. Car manufacturers are required to install seat belts. Obviously, the government can and does impose regulations when the public good outweighs private interests.

Besides which, this unusual state law is responsible for the market being as it is. Durango has a ridiculous number of liquor stores. The phone book lists 15. When I moved here, it seemed to me that one could almost jump from liquor store to liquor store without ever touching the pavement.

The current rules distort the market by creating far more liquor stores than consumers would otherwise support. Imagine if milk could only be sold at specialized milk stores. There would be a milk store every few blocks, just as is now the case with liquor stores.

My guess is a bunch of small, unattractive liquor stores would go out of business, while the biggest and best (like Star Liqours and Liquor World in Durango) would survive. That, to me, is an acceptable outcome. Obviously, liquor store owners feel differently.

Which brings us to objection #2, that grocery stores would carry only the big brands and smallish brewers like Ska, Steamworks and Durango Brewing would not be able to get their beer in front of consumers.

I can only point to Oregon's experience with grocery-store sales, which has been overwhelmingly positive. The state has a thriving craft beer industry while also allowing grocery stores to sell full-strength beer.

Certainly, not every grocery store in Oregon carries beer from small producers. But a surprising number do. And bottle shops fill in the gaps.

To give an example: In my old hometown of Corvallis, Oregon, (pop. 50,000) you can walk into a grocery store and buy beer from the big guys like Deschutes, Widmer and Rogue. If you want something more unusual, you simply go to the bottle shop downtown, Whiteside's Beer and Wine, which has a selection that puts anyplace in Durango to shame.

Oregon's breweries have not suffered as a result of grocery store sales. Just look at success stories like Ninkasi Brewing. It was founded in 2006, brewed good beer and broke into grocery stores. It's now the seventh-largest brewery in Oregon, with an output comparable to Ska's.

Grocery-store sales in Colorado seem to me inevitable, whether it takes a year or 10 or 50. And guess what: when it happens, the sky will not fall.

Review: Durango Winter Ale

by Chuck Slothower

Durango Brewing Co. reminds me of a baseball team that has some great new players, but also some aging veterans of limited utility. By this I mean that some of DBC's beers are world-class, while others are completely forgettable.

DBC is on the rise. Its consecutive gold medals at the 2008 and 2009 Great American Beer Festival attest to that. The medal-winning Derail Ale and Colorfest fall seasonal are superb. So is the Pale Ale spring seasonal.

Still, some of DBC's beers are utterly mediocre, and I point to the Wheat and Golden. Jeff Alworth once used the term "under-engineered" in referring to New Belgium's beers, and I think the same applies to DBC's basic lineup. The Wheat and Golden seem too thin-bodied, a small step up from Budweiser or MolsonCoors products, almost as if the brewers were afraid to put some hops and malt in the damn brew kettle. (Durango Dark Lager is an exception, a malty black treat. The Amber is decent if unexceptional).

DBC's less interesting beers share one trait: they're all old. DBC was founded in 1990, back when the craft-brewing explosion was still in its infancy. At the time, beer drinkers were happy if the beer was wet. The competition, and beer drinkers' expectations, have increased dramatically.

This is a good thing, and DBC has responded by improving greatly in the last few years. Which brings us to Durango WinterAle, the brewery's cold-weather seasonal.

Winter Ale is on tap at the brewery, 3000 Main Ave., and in 22-ounce bomber bottles for about $4.

Winter Ale pours black with minimal head, showing a ruby tint when suffused with light. Whether on tap or bottled, my reaction to Durango Winter Ale has been the same: It's simply too sweet. Winter Ale has a massive bill of sweet malts that is not balanced out by the insubstantial hops bill.

Most winter warmers carry a fairly strong hop presence. Deschutes Jubelale is 60 IBUs. Full Sail Wassail is 56 IBUs. By contrast, Durango Winter Ale is only 37 IBUs.

This leads to a sweet taste that lacks the sort of complexity present in most winter seasonals. As Winter Ale warms, the sweet malts simply become more assertive. The hops seem to be hibernating.

Winter Ale does not stand well on its own, nor does it pair well with most foods. It does, however, make a heck of a dessert beer. I had a pumpkin pie with Winter Ale, and it made for a wonderful combination.

Still, that's faint praise for a beer that lacks versatility. Winter Ale is not one of Durango Brewing Co.'s better offerings. C